MCD spells measures to raise revenue

[1]

A heart-shaped rose bouquet on display on Valentine’s Day in New Delhi on Monday. PHOTO: Bunny Smith

The MCD has identified 12 lakh property owners, given them a unique code, and plans to put the entire list on its website with an aim to bring more property tax owners in the tax net and track defaulters. This was announced as one of the major initiatives to raise revenue for the cash-strapped civic body as its `6,943.63-crore final budget for the year 2011-12 was finally passed on Monday.
Delivering the final budget speech, Leader of the House in the MCD, Subhash Arya, said that apart from the 12 lakh property owners already identified, another three lakh were likely to be identified in the next couple of months and their details would be put on the website. With the unique property identification code (UPIC), the MCD, which has always been criticised for not being able to bring in more people under the property tax net, hopes to ensure better tax compliance and track down defaulters.
Traditionally, the MCD has not been able to get more than eight to nine lakh property owners in its tax net, against an estimated 25 lakh property owners in the city.
In another measure aimed at increasing the revenue, the MCD has made it mandatory for the banquet halls and farmhouses to pay registration fees. There are nearly 5,000 banquet halls and farmhouses in the city. The MCD has also asked all the advertisers, who have been displaying their products using over-sized boards than what they have paid for, to pay the extra amount by March 31 or face action.
The move is being claimed as a major step towards shoring up the revenues of the cash-strapped civic body by the ruling BJP. The opposition Congress has been attacking the BJP on the grounds that the announcements of mega-plans by the MCD were meaningless in the absence of revenue-augmenting measures.